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Dagger
Tandy Bowen is the ever-cheerful, ever-personable cashier at Carney's Corner in one of the worst neighborhoods of New York. She is the also the girlfriend of Tyrone Johnson. Dagger is a superhero in New York City that is known to be the partner of Cloak. She is a former member of the New Warriors along with Cloak ... outside of work hours. Background It all began with the divorce. When Tandy's father moved from Shaker Heights, Ohio to India seeking a "spiritual rebirth", the estate Tandy's already self-centered, celebrated mother--Melissa was a highly successful model--became wealthy beyond all reason from her husband's estate and her career. Subsequently marrying Phillip Carlisle, a kind man, but not her father and thus rejected by the young Tandy, Tandy's mother neglected her daughter while, in an unholy triangle of bad behaviour, Tandy ignored him. For the affection missing from home that she so craved, Tandy turned to an older teen--Rob Daltry--but he left for college shortly after that romance picked up. Tandy, tired of her empty, albeit wealthy, lifestyle, picked up, left home, and took a bus to New York, joining the legion of runaways who flooded that city at the time. While in her first days there, a man tried to rob her, but was stopped by the homeless Tyrone Johnson (who had ironically been contemplating robbing her himself when he saw her get robbed by another and stepped in). In thanks she bought him food and the two quickly became friends. The story of Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson continued with the introduction of Dr. Simon Marshall, whose gang of men rounded up runaways--including Tandy--and offered them food and shelter. Naively, Tandy went along with it. Streetwise Tyrone joined her, suspecting things were not right. Sadly, Tyrone was correct. At the shelter the runaways were knocked unconscious and injected with a designer drug--D-Lite--the Maggia were testing as a replacement for heroin. All of the experimental subjects died but Tyrone and Tandy, along with a Chinese youth named Martin Li (who would later become Mr. Negative, unbeknownst to the pair). This pair, through the mechanism of latent mutant genetic factors (and, again, unknown to either, the magical interference of the villain D'Spayre), survived the drug, jumped into the river, and started manifesting superhuman powers. When Marshall's men attacked the pair, they were consumed by Tyrone (now Cloak) and his hunger or knocked down by Tandy (now Dagger) and her light daggers. The two became Cloak and Dagger, and pledged to protect other young people, especially runaways and the homeless, from the dangers that had nearly done them in. Although ambivalent initially about the vigilante lifestyle, and still a bit flighty in personality, Tandy was fiercely loyal to Cloak and remained by his side (a few short episodes of her trying to break free from the lifestyle notwithstanding) to the point of even rejecting the opportunity to live with her stepfather. In there time together, the pair have teamed with Spider-Man to take down a villain or three. Dagger helped rescue the New Warriors (and accepted a membership with them, an honour which Cloak declined) serving for a while as a Warriors reservist. Cloak, having been manipulated by Nightmare, started to consume all lawbreakers, leading Dagger to seek the aid of a variety of heroes (including Daredevil, Doctor Strange, even the Punisher) before using her full strength on Cloak, temporarily taking on his powers while he returned to being a normal human. His powers eventually returned to him and the pair continued their mission. Then, just as the pair seemed poised to having to face Martin Li/Mr. Negative, the universe changed. The team was drawn into the Labyrinth and faced a never-ending gamut of foes to fight, bringing Dagger nearly to the point of death through overuse of her powers. Just as the end seemed nigh, the Crisis was over, the universes merged, and the pair found themselves back a world simultaneously familiar, yet changed. On the familiar front: their apartment (so kindly paid for by her stepfather Phillip Carlisle) was still there, and still in the near-demilitarized zone that was their hunting grounds. Phillip Carlisle, however, was gone, or so it seemed, something which devastated Tandy who'd come to grow very fond of the stepfather she'd earlier so harshly rejected. (And, of course, gone with him was the stipend that kept the pair in food and clothing. Tandy had to seek a job to cover this, Tyrone not really being suited to regular employment.) The streets were still crawling with drug runners, pushers, and other low-lives who predated upon the runaways who'd still come to the city in droves seeking a better life. On the unfamiliar front: there were a lot more powers and groups of supers and the world had just become a whole lot more complicated. But the pair still slog it in the streets, fighting criminals and rescuing victims. Personality *Vengeful - Tandy and Tyrone were made into what they were by the actions of unscrupulous, criminal men enhanced by the unscrupulous, criminal powered. The pair watched as their fellow prisoners were killed in twisted experiments for the purpose of lining criminal pockets. They almost died themselves in the experiments. This has not been forgotten. It never will be forgotten. It drives Tandy's life as a vigilante, with or without official acceptance and condoning. Those who make others suffer must suffer in return. *Loyal - Tandy is not a committed vigilante like Tyrone. She does what she does for two reasons: 1. a sense of duty to other runaways victimized by the same kinds of lowlives that victimized Tyrone and her and, 2. absolute loyalty to Tyrone, whom she has cause to believe truly loves her (and almost certainly truly needs her). She has had several opportunities to leave the Cloak & Dagger pairing--and indeed has in the past even done it--only to return to her friend and partner (and lover?) from her strong sense of loyalty. *Stubborn - Once Tandy gets an idea in her head, good luck turning it around. It was her stubbornness that led to her leaving home and becoming a runaway in New York. It was her stubbornness that led to the pair being caught and ultimately being turned into Cloak & Dagger. It was her stubbornness that kept the pair alive and able to fight during their years as near-solo vigilantes. It was her stubbornness that caused them to eventually make their way through all the difficulties that crossed their paths (including the defeat of Cloak's inner predator). Of course it's also her stubbornness that leads them into turning down offered help; that leads them into their continued course in what seems to be a never-ending life of desperation and violence. Each coin, after all, has a flip side, doesn't it? *Sheltered - Tandy comes from a very wealthy upbringing and has a very poor grasp, often, of the realities of life (though she's learning--the hard way--quickly). She trusts the wrong people until it's too late. She mistrusts people for reasons of class-based prejudice. Others dismiss her or even use her because of her naivite. *Sunshine - Tandy is very much the people person of the pair. She radiates an almost angelic persona that generates trust and goodwill in most normal people simply because she seems to actually *like* people. When the pair are interacting with normal people, it is usually Tandy who does the talking ... with good reason. Logs NPC'ed *2018-04-12 - A Riot Well Wasted - Mutant fear in Gotham City! How gauche. Let's just hit things instead. First Player *TBA Gallery File: Dagger.jpg Category:Marvel Feature Category:New York City Category:Marvel Hero Category:Marvel Taken